


changwon to seoul

by chanyeonot



Series: wonwoo & his very non-imaginary boyfriend [2]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, all legal tho!, i love all of svt :(((, i love meanie :(, just basically a lot of fluff !!, minghao's HERE, some drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 08:44:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14132424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chanyeonot/pseuds/chanyeonot
Summary: finally,finally,wonwoo and mingyu won't have to be so far apart anymoreor: mingyu's transfer request gets accepted and wonwoo's a big ball of emotions





	changwon to seoul

**Author's Note:**

> that's right, i said i'd write more and more i have written! somehow this ended up even longer than the original work... wild.
> 
> IMPORTANT: you don't necessarily _need_ to read the first work in this series to understand what's going on, but i think it'd definitely make more sense if you did (if you haven't)!
> 
> i hope you enjoy !!
> 
> (please tell me if you see any mistakes)

Wonwoo gets the news on a Saturday in the middle of May, and he promptly bursts into tears.

“Oh, god―baby, are you crying?”

“No,” Wonwoo chokes out through a sob, frantically wiping his tears away even though Mingyu can obviously see them. Mingyu just coos and pulls his smaller boyfriend into his chest. “I’m just so―you’re going to be living in _Seoul_ , Gyu!”

“I know,” Mingyu chuckles. “I can’t really believe it either.”

They probably look ridiculous standing there hugging in the middle of the busy tteokbokki restaurant, one man crying into the other’s shirt as he’s consoled by a large hand patting his back, but Wonwoo can’t bring himself to care. If someone caught sight of the acceptance letter from Seoul National University lying on the table then maybe they’d understand that the crying man is finally going to be with his boyfriend _all the time_ , with no five hour train ride between them and no detrimentally conflicting schedules digging a physical rift between them. They won’t have to worry about the distance or the separation or relying on FaceTime and Snapchat just to see each other’s faces. The thought _alone_ of being able to see Mingyu at basically any time is enough to bring Wonwoo to tears, so the reality of it easily releases the floodgates of ugly sobs. It’s really not his fault.

“Um,” a person clears their throat beside them, and Wonwoo can see through his blurry vision that it’s the kind waitress who had taken their lunch orders five minutes earlier. She’s holding two trays of food now, so he pulls away and wipes his eyes in an attempt to clear them. “Here’s your food.”

Mingyu smiles and thanks her for the both of them because Wonwoo’s still not really in a state to form any words that aren’t related to Mingyu. The younger man helps his boyfriend into his chair as the waitress places their meals on the table, careful to avoid covering the letter sitting in the center.

When Mingyu told Wonwoo two days ago that they should meet at their usual spot halfway between Seoul, where Wonwoo lived, and Changwon, where Mingyu lived, the older man hadn’t suspected anything of it. Sure, Mingyu had sounded a little excited over the phone, but he practically always sounded like he’d just consumed at least half a dozen donuts’ worth of sugar. And yeah, Wonwoo had been aware that Mingyu submitted his application to transfer to Seoul National University, but he hadn’t been aware that the acceptance (or rejection, but not in Mingyu’s case! ha!) letters had already been sent out. So when the tall boy had set the paper down, face up, in front of Wonwoo, the tears were kind of just a knee-jerk reaction.

“They want me to live on campus during the first year I’m there,” Mingyu says, and Wonwoo nods because he’d managed to reach that part in the letter before his vision started to cloud up. It’ll be good for Mingyu, he thinks, to get settled in at SNU without having to worry about having an apartment and paying rent. Tuition fees are already gruesome enough. “And Minghao got accepted too, so we’re gonna request to room together.”

Wonwoo met Minghao nearly a year ago during that beach trip where he’d met Mingyu too. It was easy to tell straight from the start that the two were best friends, and he hadn’t been the least bit surprised when Mingyu told him that Minghao was applying to transfer from Changwon as well. Now they’re both going to be at SNU with Wonwoo and all of Wonwoo’s insane friends and _god_ it’s going to be _perfect_.

When Mingyu had first mentioned transferring a couple months ago, Wonwoo'd been afraid that Mingyu was just doing it for the sake of their relationship.  _"I'm always going to be here,"_ he'd promised, _"I won't let distance ruin this."_ It wasn't until the younger very thoroughly explained (with evidence) how the transfer was the right step in strengthening both his education track and Minghao's photography that Wonwoo finally let himself settle into accepting the idea. And today he gets to read the SNU acceptance letter over and over again and cry over how amazing his boyfriend is.

“That’s wonderful,” he murmurs. He stares at his tteokbokki and sniffles. “I’m so proud of you.”

Mingyu beams at him as he digs into his own food. Getting accepted to Seoul National University is by no means easy, and Wonwoo spent practically his whole high school career building the strongest application he could. He loved Changwon, really, but SNU was his dream school. It’s where he ended up meeting Soonyoung and Junhui, too, and although he’s not exactly sure how either of them got in he’s glad they did, because ever since Soonyoung introduced himself with a cheery smile and a “Hello, I’m your new roommate!” and they saved a very drunk Junhui from this creepy guy at Wonwoo’s first ever party, his life has never been boring. SNU is where all of his friendships and best experiences are grounded, and having Mingyu there too just makes everything so much more special.

“Oh my god,” Wonwoo laughs through his drying tears. “Just wait until all our friends find out.” (Because his friends are Mingyu’s friends, damn it.) “I bet you Jun will cry worse than I did.”

Mingyu snorts. “He probably will. I’m pretty sure he loves me more than you do.”

And that makes _Wonwoo_ snort. Mingyu’s cheeks start to redden at the implication he’d obviously accidentally made, but Wonwoo grins out, “He can try,” and his smile only widens when Mingyu blushes under the sunlight pouring in through the restaurant’s tall windows. The sight is enough to knock the breath out of him.

Wonwoo spends the rest of their lunch date bulldozing Mingyu with questions about the transfer, and Mingyu answers every question the best he can. Wonwoo pays for the bill when they finish and they walk around downtown Daejeon, enjoying the bright spring day and the feeling of each other’s hand in their own.

“We’re going to have this all the time,” Wonwoo sighs happily as he tightens his grip on his boyfriend’s hand and leads him down the street towards nowhere in particular.

“Yeah,” Mingyu confirms, and the tone of his voice makes Wonwoo look over at him reflexively. He’s smiling, so gently, straight at Wonwoo, sending all the butterflies in the older’s stomach into a chaotic frenzy. They’re still walking but Mingyu tugs on the hand in his to pull Wonwoo closer, and he plants a quick kiss on Wonwoo’s forehead. “We will.”

 

―

 

The three months between May and Mingyu’s move-to-Seoul date pass incredibly fast. Finals are the only obstacle during that period, and they sweep through apartment 117 with the intent to kill. Soonyoung barely hangs onto sanity and relies on Seungcheol’s and Jihoon’s foster pets as emotional (and mental) therapy animals, and Junhui emerges from his room maybe four times total during the whole week, all occasions being solely for the sake of going to actually take his exams. Joshua moves in temporarily to keep Jeonghan alive for his senior finals, but he’s busy enough trying to retain all the information for his own last round of classes. Wonwoo and Mingyu decide not to FaceTime unless an emergency comes up so they can focus on cramming, but Mingyu ends up breaking and calling Wonwoo halfway through the week. Wonwoo nearly sobs in relief when he sees the cute picture of the two of them doing finger hearts pop up on his phone screen behind Mingyu’s contact name.

After that, though, it’s all smooth sailing. Wonwoo travels back to Changwon to spend his summer break with his family and Mingyu. June and July pass under the hot sun and August begins with the smell of new cardboard and the sound of styrofoam packing peanuts rustling together.

“Thanks for helping us pack up,” Mingyu says against Wonwoo’s sweaty hair one afternoon when the two of them and Minghao are packing all of the two younger boys’ stuff into boxes. Minghao’s hoisting a few labeled boxes into the back of his pickup truck and Wonwoo and Mingyu are standing in the doorway of Changwon’s east residence hall, half in the sun and half in the air-conditioned indoors.

“Of course,” Wonwoo smiles back. There’s no way he’d miss being a part of this, not when there’s so much stuff to move and this is such a big step for both of their futures. Plus, Mingyu’s wearing a sleeveless white tank top in an attempt to help keep himself cool in the summer heat and there’s no way Wonwoo would _ever_ miss that. He honestly never thought that watching someone carry heavy boxes around while covered in sweat could be so attractive, yet here he is.

“Hey,” Minghao calls over from the truck, effectively ruining whatever little moment the couple had been sharing. “Stop being gross and keep moving shit, we got a lot to do.”

Mingyu laughs and draws away from Wonwoo, who pouts a little at the lack of contact. “Aye, aye, captain,” he says with a salute. Wonwoo meets Minghao’s eyes and gives him a reassuring thumbs up when the younger just squints at him in the most unimpressed fashion Wonwoo’s ever seen.

Initially, Minghao had been convinced Wonwoo would be totally useless in the packing process. The main problems, he argued, were that Wonwoo’s arms were about the size of two stringy noodles and Mingyu never seemed to be able to focus whenever the older was around anyway. This meant Minghao would have to deal with an out-of-order muscle machine in addition to just plain dead weight, and his own slightly-noodlish arms wouldn’t be able to handle picking up all the slack.

Wonwoo quickly disproved the first speculation, however, because even though he looks like he’s just skin and bones, there is actually some muscle hidden in his body somewhere. The second point of protest did turn out to be an actual issue, however, and Minghao makes sure to hop on every opportunity to tell the two boyfriends to quit with the PDA and get back to work lest they wish him to smack them with empty boxes.

After everything is packed, the two younger boys give an oddly ceremonial goodbye to their dorm as Wonwoo watches on with mild concern. The drive from Changwon to SNU finds Wonwoo squished between Minghao, who absolutely refuses to let anyone else behind the wheel of his truck, and Mingyu, who needs a ridiculous amount of space for his big long legs. The trip isn’t at all uncomfortable, though, and Minghao even allows Mingyu blast an hour’s worth of SHINee classics before wrestling the aux cord away from him.

“If you play Lucifer one _more time,_ Mingyu―!”

“Okay, okay!”

“ _No,_ this is _not_ better, we’ve already listened to Ring Ding Dong at least eight times!”

Wonwoo laughs the whole time, melting into the back of the seat with his muffled giggles while the two best friends argue over him.

Wonwoo’s roommates are all waiting at Mingyu’s and Minghao’s new residence hall when Minghao parks the loaded truck in front of the building. “Wonwoo!” Soonyoung immediately shouts, bear-hugging the boy when he falls out of the truck and onto the pavement. “Mingyu!” he then yells, and Mingyu receives the brunt of Soonyoung’s elation with a grin and an equally enthused greeting.

Soonyoung pauses when he turns to Minghao. “And who are you?”

“Xu Minghao,” the man in question says a little awkwardly, bowing when he seems to remember how introductions are supposed to work.

But Soonyoung just shrieks an excited “Minghao!” and Minghao looks absolutely terrified when the older engulfs him in a hug too.

“Oh, back off him,” Jeonghan chastises, pulling a now-pouting Soonyoung away by his shoulder and nodding at Minghao. “I’m Yoon Jeonghan. It’s nice to meet you, Mingyu’s told us a lot about you. Welcome to the gang!”

“Thanks,” Minghao chuckles. “It’s nice to meet you too.”

Junhui appears at Jeonghan’s side, and the way he’s looking at Minghao makes Wonwoo glance up at Mingyu smugly. _“Junhui and Minghao are going to hit it off so well,”_ he remembers telling Mingyu one night a few weeks ago.

 _“Mm, I don’t know,”_ Mingyu _definitely_ replied. _“They seem too… opposite.”_

 _“Well they do say opposites attract. I don’t know, I just have a really good feeling about it,”_ Wonwoo said. He knew Junhui better than anyone else in the world, knew how he dated so intensely and dropped the person just as quickly, like how the sun burns bright during the day and disappears every night only to come back the next morning. But from what Wonwoo knew of Minghao, he also knew the younger wouldn’t likely let Junhui go so easily.

And though it was all speculation (and perhaps wishful thinking), Junhui’s looking at Minghao like he just found a chest full of treasure, and Wonwoo can’t help but feel like he was a little right. More right than Mingyu, at least, which is enough to make him bump his hip into the taller’s with a proud grin. Mingyu only rolls his eyes at the action.

“I’m Wen Junhui.”  The tall Chinese boy introduces himself, his words a little spaced out as he stares at Minghao.

Minghao nods, and Wonwoo doesn’t miss the small smile on his face. He figures it’s a good thing it’s been a little while since Junhui broke up with his last girlfriend. He definitely likes Minghao a lot more than that girl too―she kept telling him he looked like a ghost whenever they saw each other, and if Wonwoo got a thousand won bill every time she’d said that, he could have probably been able to just pay her to go away. Thankfully that hadn’t been necessary, but still. At least Minghao doesn’t constantly remind him how apparently pale he is.

“Well,” Jeonghan says to break the tension slowly building in the silence. “What room are you two in? We’ll help you carry your stuff up.”

Beside him, Soonyoung pockets his phone and smiles brightly at the new arrivals. “Seokmin and Seungcheol will be here soon to help too.”

Oh good lord, Wonwoo thinks to himself as they all start heading up to check out Minghao’s and Mingyu’s room. Minghao will have only been here for not even an hour and he’ll already have to live through Seokmin and Soonyoung and Jeonghan and Seungcheol all in the same room.

As it turns out none of it’s a problem, because when Seokmin and Seungcheol show up, Minghao fits right in. Wonwoo watches on in amazement as the Chinese boy keeps up with the balls of energy without difficulty, and all eight of them manage to move Mingyu and Minghao into their new dorm room in no time.

“Job well done,” Jeonghan says with a nod of approval as he surveys the room. Wonwoo looks around too, and he has to say he’s impressed with all the work they actually _did_ do well. A phenomenon for his group of friends, truly.

The room’s a little cramped but cozy nonetheless, with all Mingyu’s blankets sprawled out over his mattress and all his odd trinkets organized on a little dresser. The hand-sized special edition Legolas action figure Wonwoo gifted him for his last birthday is front and center, and it makes a little blossom of pride bloom in Wonwoo’s chest. Minghao’s side of the room looks like something out of one of those interior design magazines that prints pictures of college dorm rooms that are far too aesthetic and clean to actually be college dorm rooms. He wouldn’t let anyone touch any of his things once they were outside the boxes, which was probably why everything looked so neat and tidy. Mingyu, on the other hand, had let Jeonghan unleash the perfectionist monster inside himself to yell at Junhui and Wonwoo in order to make sure all his band posters were lined up _exactly_ evenly on the wall by Mingyu’s bed. Mingyu and Seokmin laughed from where they sat on the floor at the poor boys who whined and groaned because the fact that they’re the tallest in the group shouldn’t subject them to this kind of torture, goddamnit.

But now, standing back and observing them, Wonwoo has to say the tingling sensation that still hasn’t left his arms from when they’d gone numb was worth it because the posters _do_ look good put up by Jeonghan’s design. Mingyu better appreciate the labor and pain he and Junhui had to sacrifice just so he could see Lee Jooheon’s face every time he even walks into the room.

Suddenly Soonyoung gasps, and everyone breaks out of their momentary comfortable silence to look at him in surprise. “Minghao,” he says like the name itself is the biggest offense he’s ever had to speak. Minghao stares at him with wide eyes. “You haven’t gotten an official tour of the campus, have you?”

Wonwoo sighs and rolls his eyes, because of course.

“I’ve, uh, toured it before,” Minghao says. “Since I, you know, was going to transfer here.”

Wonwoo remembers when Mingyu and Minghao had both come to take a look around SNU’s campus, back during a weekend in March when Wonwoo and all of his roommates had coincidentally planned to visit Soonyoung’s family an hour and a half away in Namyangju. He’d almost ditched the trip so he could see his boyfriend, but Mingyu managed to talk him out of it.

It’s probably a good thing he couldn’t show them around because the transfer had been so up in the air at that point that Wonwoo was too nervous to even think about it. Dealing with such a possibility first hand probably would’ve caused him too much anxiety, but now, it’s already happened. Mingyu and Minghao are here.

“No, no,” Soonyoung says as he shakes his head to show they are _clearly_ missing his point. “Have you gotten a _tour_ tour?”

Minghao glances over at Mingyu a little helplessly. “I don’t…” he trails off, understandably at a loss for the correct answer.

Soonyoung claps loud enough to make Seungcheol jump. “Well, looks like you’re about to get one! Grab your hats and follow me, people!”

The next couple hours are spent following Soonyoung around the whole campus, the man telling all his crazy stories as they hopped from place to place. Minghao does seem fascinated by everything, which is reassuring, and he even seems to appreciate the little comments that Junhui, Seokmin, and Jeonghan throw in here and there. Seungcheol follows them at his own pace, only speaking to defend himself whenever one of the younger ones toss out an accusation that he did something he would never really do. Wonwoo and Mingyu lag far behind, their steps slow and fingers intertwined.

“It’s beautiful here,” Mingyu hums after several minutes of listening to Soonyoung’s distant yet dramatic retellings of the all various times his friends did something dumb here and did something stupid there. It’s all sort of peaceful though, even with Soonyoung’s voice disturbing literally everything in the general vicinity. The August air is warm but not too humid, and a rare breeze ruffles through Wonwoo’s big t-shirt (which he’s _pretty_ sure is actually Mingyu’s because this definitely isn’t his size). SNU’s campus is teeming with overbearing modern buildings but the old tittering trees that line the paved pathway bring back a sense of nature, a sense of the earth. There’s something distinctly more beautiful about the promise of the buildings and the sound of the trees and the surety of the ground with Mingyu’s hand in his and Mingyu’s body beside his, so he takes a deep breath and hums low in his chest to show he agrees.

Up ahead, their crowd turns the corner and disappears behind one of the large buildings but Wonwoo isn’t worried about losing them. He kind of _hopes_ they lose them, if he’s being totally honest, because this bubble he’s created with Mingyu is calm and perfect and if anyone were going to pop it, it’d be one of the idiots he calls his friends.

“I love this,” Mingyu finally says, and when Wonwoo glances over at him, the widest, most genuine smile has made its usual home on the taller’s face. He’s glowing under the mid-summer sunlight, honey skin and soft black hair and Wonwoo kind of just falls all over again.

 _I love you_ jumps to the tip of his tongue but he swallows it back down. Not yet, not now.

“Me too,” he settles on.

Mingyu turns that smile to him, and all he can do is blush before he faces forward in a vain attempt to hide it. Mingyu just giggles and swings their arms together. This, right here, is what Wonwoo’s dreamed of.

 

―

 

“Oh my _god_ ,” Wonwoo hears a girl right down the hall say almost scandalously.

“‘Oh my god’ is right, holy shit,” the girl beside her gasps. “He’s _hot._ ”

Wonwoo doesn’t look away from where he’s playing Sky Burger on his phone and doesn’t really pay any attention to the clearly concerned girls a few feet from him either―this burger won’t build itself, and he is nothing if not a master virtual burger chef.

He’s waiting in the blissfully air-conditioned hallway of the education department’s main building. Today is the first day of classes and he doesn’t mean to hover, but he’s dying to know how Mingyu’s first early childhood education course went. His boyfriend had called him at the crack of dawn this morning to spill out all his worries and self-created worst scenarios that could _totally_ _happen, Wonwoo_ , and it’d taken the older actually walking his ass over to Mingyu’s residence hall to get him to calm down. Wonwoo’s senior schedule allowed him to sleep in every morning of first semester, but he’d been too worried to fall back asleep when he returned to his apartment. He’d ended up leaving for the education center an hour and a half later so he could be there when Mingyu’s class finished. And now it’s ten a.m. and the class should be ending―

Now, actually.

Wonwoo _does_ look up when he notices all the people filing out of the room that’d just been opened a couple doors down. He botches his burger and pockets his phone, craning his neck around to try and spot Mingyu. It’s not too hard―he’s tall, and so is Mingyu, and it’s only a few seconds before he zeroes in on a strip of his boyfriend’s tan forehead and his unmistakable fluffy hair. A smile curls his lips upwards in some instinctive response to the sight.

(“That’s _disgusting_ ,” Jihoon had said when he caught Wonwoo breaking out into a smile the second he saw Mingyu arrive at the restaurant they’d eaten at a couple nights ago.

“What?” Wonwoo asked a bit distractedly when he registered his friend was talking to him.

“You just―” Jihoon shook his head. “You know what, nevermind.”)

Wonwoo peels back against the wall to stay out of the other students’ way, and it’s not until Mingyu is a few feet away from him that he realizes the girls who’d sounded so breathtaken just a few moments earlier were talking about his _boyfriend_.

“What a specimen,” one of the girls whistles as she very obviously looks Mingyu up and down. The man in question is hunched over just slightly so he’s closer to the height of the guy he’s talking too, and Wonwoo frowns. That _specimen_ is a taken man, thank you very much.

“God took his time making that,” the other one says right before Mingyu looks up and makes eye contact with Wonwoo. The younger’s face brightens into a blinding smile, and the girls hide gasps behind their manicured hands.

One of them looks like she’s about to try to engage Mingyu as he passes them, but he delicately shoulders by them with a small “excuse me!” so he can weave through the crowd of kids funneling into the wider hall. Wonwoo breaks away from Mingyu’s gaze just long enough to see the slightly put out expression on the girls’ faces.

“Hey,” Mingyu says with the biggest puppy grin when he’s finally standing right in front of Wonwoo. The older suppresses the strong but familiar urge to ruffle his boyfriend’s hair and litter kisses all over his face. Mingyu, however, gives into some similar impulse and dips down to press a quick but unmissable kiss against Wonwoo’s lips.

“Hey,” Wonwoo smiles once Mingyu’s pulled away. Mingyu seems happy with his eyes all crinkled up and cheeks bunched up under his eyes, so Wonwoo dares to tease, “Your professor didn’t force you to introduce yourself and list all your childhood pets in English, I take it?”

Mingyu flushes. “No,” he admits. “That was kind of ridiculous for me to think that, wasn’t it?”

Wonwoo chuckles softly but rocks up onto his tiptoes to kiss Mingyu briefly again. “A little bit, yeah.” He chances another a quick peek over to the two girls who’re still standing at the corner. A few stragglers continue trickling out of the classroom, so Wonwoo assumes they’re waiting for someone inside. But right now they’re still looking at Mingyu’s back and Wonwoo by association and they appear to be absolutely _shocked_. Wonwoo can’t really help the small blossom of pride that blooms in his chest, because _fuck yeah_ this is his man.

“C’mon,” he says, facing Mingyu again. The younger arches a brow questioningly. “We have to go to the campus store so you can officially be a SNU student. You’re not a crane until you have at least three different items of clothing to prove it,” he grins. Mingyu laughs as his boyfriend tugs him towards the building’s exit. “And you can tell me all about your class on the way.”

Mingyu grins. “Well I got there ten minutes early because I’m a huge ball of nerves, you know me, and there were so many empty seats so I just chose one near the front and then this other guy sat next to me just before class was supposed to start and we didn’t get to talk much but he’s actually super cool…”

Wonwoo listens intently as they make their way across campus, nodding and asking questions whenever Mingyu talks too fast. His heart still skips a beat every time the taller absent-mindedly squeezes his hand in his excitement, and Wonwoo’s kind of in love with the way he can do this, the way he can hold Mingyu’s hand whenever he wants and listen to Mingyu’s voice any time he yearns to hear it.

 

―

 

The music’s too loud for Wonwoo’s taste, which is weird because he usually doesn’t mind a good chest-rattling volume. It’s likely just the territory, the unfamiliar smell of sweat and lust and the bitter taste of alcohol on his tongue, that’s setting him on edge. Well it’s not necessarily _unfamiliar_ , but Wonwoo doesn’t usually try to land himself among these scenes very often.

They’re all at a frat party, the first one of the year actually, and Wonwoo’s spent a vast majority of the past two hours leaning against the counter in the kitchen of the house. He’s been to a grand total of three frat parties during the last three years of attending SNU, this one bumping the count up to four. Jeonghan had shown up to their apartment that afternoon with the invitation details memorized and a strong case already built as to why they should all go. _“Think, Wonwoo_ , _”_ he stressed. _“This is Mingyu’s and Minghao’s first SNU frat party. They gotta get the full experience.”_

Mingyu had seemed excited by the prospect while Minghao’s expression turned slightly more dubious. Wonwoo geared up to use the latter’s lack of an enthusiastic response as ammunition in his argument but right before he could open his mouth, Mingyu spun on him then with this gleam of thrilled anticipation in his eyes and Wonwoo, ever the crumbling castle wall, gave in almost instantly.

And so now he’s here in a frat house kitchen with a red solo cup in his hand that makes him feel basic. He’s long since lost Mingyu, whom Soonyoung began toting around thirty seconds after arriving. (“I’ve got to show off this hot hunka,” Soonyoung said when Wonwoo protested, rubbing his hands up and down Mingyu’s upper arms in a really fucking weird way. “Boosts my cred, you know?”) Wonwoo watches Mingyu disappear into the sea of body in his mind’s eye and frowns at the unidentified foreign liquid in his cup. He finds some small consolence in sloshing the dark substance around so it leaves a murky residue on the cup’s sides.

It’s not that Wonwoo is a wet blanket or incapable of enjoying himself, it’s just that parties aren’t really his thing. He prefers just hanging out with his friends, with people he knows and understands (or doesn’t, in the cases of Wen Junhui and Kwon Soonyoung), where they can actually hear each other speak and they’re not packed like sardines into an eight-room house with hundreds of other university students Wonwoo’s never even seen before. He can’t see how there’s anything wrong with that.

His friends, however, love to party, with the except of Jihoon―he and Wonwoo hung out at the two of the three previous frat parties Wonwoo’s been to, but he was unfortunately unable to come be uncomfortable with his friend tonight. His friends who _did_ come diffused into the crowd almost instantly after Soonyoung had hauled Mingyu off, and so Wonwoo’s just been watching people flow in and out of the kitchen, all in various states of drunkenness. It’s definitely weird, but as far as Wonwoo’s small repertoire of frat parties go, this one’s been the least painful and humiliating so far. Still kind of sad because it’s his first one where his boyfriend is in the same house and yet he has no idea where he is, but he’s survived through worse (like four months of his friends thinking he was dating an imaginary guy no matter how he tried to convince them otherwise).

He’s busy deciding whether or not he should put the contents of his cup into his mouth (he’s not exactly sure what said contents are, so he’s probably _not_ going to) when two girls bumble into the kitchen, their shoulders bumping into each other with every shake of laughter. It takes Wonwoo a moment that _those are the girls_ , the ones who’d stood in the hallway of the education department building a few days ago and talked about how attractive Mingyu is.

He gets a better look at them now―one has rich brown hair and crescent eyes while the other is dyed platinum blonde and has a wider feel to all her features, and they’re both considerably short. They’re certainly dressed for a frat party, and, objectively, Wonwoo thinks they’re both very pretty. They both seem like the kind of girls who take ten minutes just to get the right pose for a picture to post on Instagram, but Wonwoo hasn’t really had enough contact with the opposite sex to know for sure.

The two girls spot him a second later, and their hazy eyes widen in recognition when they seem to realize where they’ve seen him before. One of them tugs on the other’s arms and suddenly they’re stumbling over to Wonwoo with empty cups clutched in their hands.

“You’ _re_ ,” the one with blonde hair says before giggles interrupt her. She starts again, “ _You’re_ the guy who’s dating that other really hot guy!”

Wonwoo raises his brows. “Um… yeah. That’d be me.”

The blonde one nods vigorously like she, yes, of course, knew this. “You two are very cute together.”

This catches Wonwoo by surprise. He’d expected them to come, like… try to fight him for Mingyu, or something weird like that. But them calling him and his boyfriend cute? Wonwoo huffs out a laugh of pleasant disbelief and swirls his cup around again. “Thanks, I guess.”

This time the brown-haired one speaks up. “You’re so _lucky_ ,” she whines. “I wish I had a boyfriend that hot. And one that looks at me the way he looks at you.”

Wonwoo can’t help the small smile that crept out over his face. A giggly voice in his head (Soonyoung’s, he’s pretty sure) tells him that he and Mingyu are _goals_ (definitely Soonyoung).

“And you’re pretty hot yourself,” the blonde one says with a wink that doesn’t feel at all suggestive. To the other girl, she explains, “Attractive people are, like, magnetized to each other, Mina. That’s why you and I are still single.”

The brunette, Mina, just whines again and Wonwoo smiles at the both of them. He kind of wants to maybe ask them for their numbers so they can hang out some other time when none of them are even slightly intoxicated, but right before he can, Junhui bursts into the kitchen and gasps overdramatically when his eyes land on Wonwoo.

“Jeon Wonwoo!” he exclaims. “ _There_ you are! Please come collect your man, he’s clinging to a lamp and every time me or Soonyoung tries to peel him off it he just blubbers something about how he can’t leave you.”

Oh, goodness. Wonwoo shoots a small apology at the two girls in front of him and slips by them to follow Junhui into the living room. They weave through the mass of bodies to reach Mingyu who is, in fact, wrapped around one of the larger lamps like a koala. Soonyoung’s hovering around him trying to soothingly shout something like “ _Come on Mingyu, Wonwoo might be skinny but he’s not_ that _skinny!”_ Mingyu just shakes his head vehemently and hugs the lamppost a little tighter.

When Wonwoo reaches them, his first instinct is to laugh. It’s all kind of precious, the way Mingyu won’t let go of the lamp because he thinks it’s Wonwoo, but also kind of sad because there are tears in his eyes and he’s so obviously drunk off his ass.

“Mingyu,” Wonwoo says gently, placing his hand on his boyfriend’s shoulder. The boy doesn’t look at him though, just squeezes his eyes shut. Soonyoung and Junhui hover by worriedly for a moment before oozing back into the crowd. “Hey, Gyu. Look at me.”

Mingyu cracks an eye open and turns his head just enough so he can see Wonwoo. His face softens and Wonwoo thinks he sees the younger’s grip loosen marginally on the poor strangled lamppost. “Gyu, baby. It’s Wonwoo. You’re pretty drunk, I think we need to go home.”

That apparently is not the right thing to say, because the panic returns to Mingyu’s face. “No! No I can’t go home I can’t leave Wonwoo.”

“No no, baby,” the older rushes out. The party still rages on around them but he tries to keep his voice comforting. “It’s okay, it’s me, Wonwoo. I’m going to take you back to my apartment, and we can stay together there. I’m not going to leave you, okay?”

This seems to placate drunk Mingyu enough to make him let go of the lamppost. He still looks so sad and dejected, and Wonwoo really tries to take him seriously. “You’re Wonwoo?” he asks hesitantly.

“Yes,” Wonwoo promises. Mingyu makes a grunt of acceptance before engulfing his boyfriend in a suffocating hug. “Oh!” The force almost knocks Wonwoo over, but he manages to keep both of them upright. “Can you walk?”

Mingyu nods into the crook of his neck, and Wonwoo lets him stay there for a second as he rubs his back.

“You gotta let me move,” he murmurs into the taller’s ear. “C’mon, here, like this.”

They shuffle around until Mingyu’s satisfied with just holding onto Wonwoo’s right arm and Wonwoo can actually move. The less-drunk one catches Junhui’s gaze from where he’s got his arm over Minghao’s shoulder as they leave, and the Chinese boy waves them goodbye with a wink that Wonwoo decidedly ignores. Warm air hits them when they finally escape the stuffy house, but it’s refreshingly less humid than inside with all those sweaty bodies. The sun has long since set but the light of downtown Seoul keeps the sky from falling into darkness.

Wonwoo and his drunk koala boyfriend walk down the streets back to the older’s apartment while Mingyu gushes about how lucky he is to have Wonwoo, just the _bestest boyfriend ever,_ so close to him. And even though Wonwoo’s having trouble feeling his arm and he can’t really move his fingers, he can’t help but feel like he’s truly the lucky one. _You two are very cute together._

Yeah, he thinks as Mingyu plants his head on Wonwoo’s shoulder and mumbles something about how much he just really really wants Wonwoo to be with him all of the time. They really are.

**Author's Note:**

> i apologize for being super unknowledgeable abt the korean education system, america is all i know & i would do more research but it takes me long enough to write all this as it is ;-; 
> 
> thanks for reading! :)
> 
> p.s. monsta x SLAYED me with their comeback. lee minhyuk? owns THIS ass.


End file.
